Harvard GSD awards The High Line with 2017 Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design

Harvard GSD awarded the 13th Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design to The High Line in New York. The Green Prize committee awarded the $50,000 prize to the Friends of the High Line for their continued stewardship behind the project, which has long been hailed as a model example of urban revitalization and collaboration.

In 2004, the Friends of the High Line and the City of New York selected James Corner Field Operations, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and Piet Oudolf to design the linear public park. Stretching a mile and a half on a freight rail 30 feet above Manhattan's streets, the “floating promenade” welcomes over 8 million visitors and hosts over 450 public programs every year.

Photo: Timothy Schenck, via The High Line/Facebook.

In selecting the winner, the 2017 Green Prize jury traveled to all the finalist projects. They chose to award The High Line “not only for its exceptional design quality, but also because it was a cooperatively-orchestrated, multifaceted endeavor in which citizens, top-tier design professionals, and public authorities worked together to innovate and successfully implement a new archetype for urban design, one that is now being replicated globally,” said Diane E. Davis, chair of the 2017 Green Prize jury and the GSD Department of Urban Planning and Design, in a statement. “The rare alignment of actors, each reaching distinction at the highest professional level, made the High Line both remarkable and worthy of this prize, embodying the best in the field of urban design while also contributing to the collective urban realm.”